A reader going by the name of Aint Tellin sent me the following email:
Hello again,
I’ve been watching a number of videos by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, one of which he stated his IQ. He claimed to have had it tested at one point and that it was “in excess of 150” (although he couldn’t give an exact number). One thing struck me, however. In the same video he mentioned his GRE scores (old GRE) which he listed scoring in the 99th percentile verbally, but only 70th percentile quantitatively.
If I’m not mistaken—although I often am—this would give him a total GRE score somewhere above 1330. While impressive, this only suggests a full-scale IQ around 137. While I have no doubt he’s extremely smart, I believe he only listed his verbal IQ and not his full-scale IQ. I’d like to get your thoughts on this.
Below is a link to the aforementioned video:
When asked by a reader what his IQ is, Peterson replies “it’s less than it used to be because it declines as you age”
Actually professional IQ tests like the Wechsler are normed for age, so the average old adult and the average young adult by definition have an IQ of 100. However Peterson’s correct that the actually number of items correctly answered (raw scores) decline after the 20s, but IQ itself is age controlled. Maybe Peterson knows all this and is just oversimplifying for the short attention spans on youtube.
I do love what he says about physical exercise staving off cognitive decline though. In another video he attributes this to the fact that the brain uses tons of oxygen. Perhaps our resident health expert RR could look into this.
Moving on, he mentions that he had his IQ tested at one point (why?, when? by who? what test?) and that it was in excess of 150. My guess is he probably took the WAIS-R while getting his PhD in clinical psychology circa 1990, perhaps as part of the training to administer the test. If so, the test norms were probably about 12 years old, and assuming James Flynn is right about Wechsler norms inflating at a rate of 0.3 points per year, we may need to deduct 3.6 points (meaning his IQ was in excess of 146 (U.S. norms)).
But that’s speculation on top of speculation. Let’s turn to his GRE scores.
GRE Verbal
He mentions that his GRE verbal was in the 99th percentile (which would be at least 2.33 standard deviations (SDs) above the GRE population if we assume their distribution was roughly normal). Assuming he took the test circa 1984 (when he got his BA), that would have equated to a score of 778+.
We don’t know much how GRE scores equate to IQ, because GREs are normed on aspiring PhDs while IQ is normed on the general U.S. population. One way to bridge the gap is to convert GRE scores into SAT equivalents, since in rare studies, SATs were taken by the general U.S. population.
A sample of 22,923 people took both the GRE and SAT before 1990. In this sample, GRE verbal 778 is +2.49 SD (see chart I).
chart I
To find the verbal SAT equivalent of GRE V 778, we must ask what SAT verbal score is +2.49 with respect to this elite sample. The answer is 780.
So how does that equate to the IQ scale? We know from a special study, that if all American 17-year-olds had taken the SAT in the 1980s, instead of just the college-bound elite, the average verbal score would have been 376 (SD = 102) (see the The Bell Curve, page 694, note 32). Since by definition, the general U.S. population has an IQ of 100 with an SD of 15, we can infer 376 = IQ 100, and 102 = 15 IQ points.
By this logic, a verbal SAT of 780+ would have equated to an IQ of 159+!
One problem with this method is that it assumes SAT scores are normally distributed at the extremes.
An alternative approach is to look at chart II which equates a GRE V and SAT V of 778+ and 780+ respectively, to IQs 149+ and 156+ respectively.
Chart II (found in the Prometheus MC Reoprt, where it was attributed to Kjeld Hvatum’s “Letter to Ron Hoeflin” and Ron’s response, In-Genius, # 15, August 1990
Averaging all three estimates gives Peterson a verbal IQ of 155+. This would put Peterson above the one in 8000 level, compared to Americans of his era.
GRE Quant
Peterson claims to have scored in the 70th to 75th percentile on the quant section of the GRE or roughly +0.6 SD above the GRE population if the distribution was normal. Circa 1984, this equated to a score of 624.
Now if I convert this quant score into an old SAT equivalent, the same way I did for the verbal, I get 600.
In The Bell Curve they note that if all American 17-year-olds had taken the math SAT in the mid 1980s, the average score (IQ 100) would have been 411 and about the top 0.96% (IQ 135) would have scored 700+. If we assume a straight line between these data points, a math score of 600 equates to IQ 123.
If so roughly one in 16 Americans of his era are at least as good at the type of math measured by the GRE.
Composite score
Since Peterson’s GRE V and GRE Q equated to old verbal and math SATs of 780+ and 600 respectively, his combined GRE (V + Q) equated to a combined old SAT score of 1380+, which equated to an IQ of about 141+ in Peterson’s day (one in 319 level).
It should be noted however that tests like the GRE and SAT do not market themselves as IQ tests and are designed to predict academic performance, not the general intelligence factor per se. They also test a narrower and more academic range of brain functions than the Wechsler intelligence scales.
Pumpkin Person 
However Peterson’s correct that the actually number of items correctly answered (raw scores) decline after the 20s
peepee making up shit again. some go up, some go down, penisson is making the ecological fallacy, because canadian and therefore dumb.
clue for peepee: gives citations for all your claims.
Peterson is right that (raw) scores, even on verbal tests decline after the 20s (or at least they did in the 1950s).
For example the average sum of verbal scaled scores on the WAIS peaks at age 25-29 (source: Wechsler’s Measurement and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence, 4th edition, page 232)
However this could be caused by birth date (flynn effect), not age. I’ve seen longitudinal studies claim even performance IQ holds up until the 50s, though Lion begs to differ.
the above graph CONTRADICTS the paper i cited.
go on
average VIQ peaks in the 50s.
penisson is retarded.
https://www.businessinsider.com/smartest-age-for-everything-math-vocabulary-memory-2017-7
So there’s not be much you can tell from GRE and SAT scores in regards to IQ—particularly in the higher end of the intelligence spectrum. Peterson may have brought it up not to equate it to his IQ, but to demonstrate the ways in which intelligence diverges and specializes. However, Peterson has also stated in past videos that, while the SAT does not purport to be an IQ test, it is one. By that measure, his V+Q score predicting an IQ of 141+ (circa 1990) would equate to around 137+ by today’s standards. This is near my original estimate.
Which leads me to my original question: is his GRE score enough to gauge whether Peterson listed his Verbal IQ and not his full-scale IQ? I would hazard a guess and say that yes it is. And the fact he immediately had to qualify his IQ listing of 150+ by saying that he’s “not overwhelmingly intelligent from a quantitative perspective” would support this claim.
Peterson may have been somewhat misleading here, or maybe—in his profession—verbal skills are valued over quantitative skills. This begs the question, is it OK to pick and choose between the different IQ subtypes when giving your IQ?
I’ve just had a second thought regarding the maintenance of IQ decline. If driving oxygen to the brain is the key mechanism behind staving off IQ decline, as Peterson says, weight training would come second to hyperventilation exercises. I’d recommend looking at the Wim Hof method, which incorporates hyperventilation exercises with body weight training. Although this is speculative and I’d need to look at the research Peterson is citing.
“This begs the question, is it OK to pick and choose between the different IQ subtypes when giving your IQ?”
No, that is obviously incredibly misleading unless you clarify that the score you are reporting only reflects one facet of your intelligence. I once got into a heated debate with someone online who thought that bragging about his IQ would intimidate me into conceding the argument. He went on to claim that his IQ was 156. Of course what he did not know is that I was tested in the army at 1 in 25,000(about 159 SD 15), on a bad day mind you. Probably would have scored at least half a SD higher if I was not disadvantaged but i guess I shouldn’t complain. In any case I have had plenty of experience with people at 160+ even someone with an IQ of 180+, so I knew he was talking out of his ass judging from the content and level of his arguments from which I had concluded that his IQ was around 135. He kept on insisting though claiming that he had taken an officially administered Mensa test and he tested at 156. At which point I got suspicious so I looked up Mensa and found out that they administer 2 types of tests, the Stanford-Binet and the Cattell. Problem is the Cattell has a standard deviation of 24 and surprise surprise an IQ of 156 equates to exactly 135 on the WAIS SD 15(the most commonly cited test and the default scale for working out different levels of intelligence). So I confronted him with this information at which point his responses abruptly came to an end.
In any case moral of the story, tests differ in scale(some very significantly) while if people only reported their best sub-score most people would score above 100. You don’t want to get caught out giving a misleading IQ. The reason this matters is that a 157 is a genius level IQ while a 135 is merely smart. There is a huge difference between the two. There’s plenty of people out there with cattell scores or childhood IQ scores pretending to be geniuses. Not that I would even consider myself a genius. No that title is strictly reserved for people that have the IQ and/or the life’s work to prove it.
Of course what he did not know is that I was tested in the army at 1 in 25,000(about 159 SD 15), on a bad day mind you. Probably would have scored at least half a SD higher if I was not disadvantaged but i guess I shouldn’t complain.
That’s extremely impressive. Do you happen to know what test this was?
Pumpkinhead seems super-smart. I knew he had a high IQ!
No, I do not know the type of test it was. I was not given any details about it except for my raw score and where I placed among test takers. It was part of a battery test for officer selection. It comprised of a logical/verbal section and a visuo-spatial section reminiscent of old school testing, 1 hour max and it was over 20 years ago. I’d rather not go into more detail about this except to say that it was not in the US.
I will admit that I am cheating a little bit in that even though this was only administered to 18 year old males I assumed that my score would likely be better than most if not all females of the same age, so I doubled the rarity to include females. Given recent data about male/female ratio of 4:1 at IQ’s between 150-160 I thought this would be a safe bet.
Which begs the question, given the disparity between males and females at such levels of IQ shouldn’t there be a different scale for males and females? In fact shouldn’t there be a different one for different populations? For example a person who is 1 in 10,000 among Europeans would have an astronomical IQ(180+) among an African population, right?
Also since I have your attention, do you think that the Bell curve for East Asians is indeed taller and narrower, meaning less geniuses? I can think of a couple of socio-cultural reasons apart for the obvious historic intellectual output disparity that would support this idea, but they seems less than scientific to me. Is there substantive data/reasoning to back up this notion given the contradictory evidence that they seem to average 3-6 IQ points higher than Europeans and even have slightly bigger brains?
I will admit that I am cheating a little bit in that even though this was only administered to 18 year old males I assumed that my score would likely be better than most if not all females of the same age, so I doubled the rarity to include females. Given recent data about male/female ratio of 4:1 at IQ’s between 150-160 I thought this would be a safe bet.
So you’re equating one out of 12.5 thousand in a male only sample with one out of 25 thousand in a sex-combined sample. That makes sense. On the WAIS-IV for example, the mean and SD of the sex-combined distribution is defined as 100 and 15 respectively, but the male mean and SD are 101.2 and 15.3 respectively, so in theory a one in 12.5 thousand male (+3.77 SD in the male distribution) would be +3.93 SD in the sex-combined distribution, or 159 as you say.
3.77(15.3) + 101.2 = 159
And if one were not feeling as well as the average test taker and if the sample was perhaps somewhat elite (aspiring officers), then that might imply even higher.
Which begs the question, given the disparity between males and females at such levels of IQ shouldn’t there be a different scale for males and females? In fact shouldn’t there be a different one for different populations? For example a person who is 1 in 10,000 among Europeans would have an astronomical IQ(180+) among an African population, right?
Sexes and races differ in height yet they’re all measured with the same tape measure. Don’t see why it should be any different for intelligence.
Also since I have your attention, do you think that the Bell curve for East Asians is indeed taller and narrower, meaning less geniuses? I can think of a couple of socio-cultural reasons apart for the obvious historic intellectual output disparity that would support this idea, but they seems less than scientific to me. Is there substantive data/reasoning to back up this notion given the contradictory evidence that they seem to average 3-6 IQ points higher than Europeans and even have slightly bigger brains?
I’ve seen no convincing evidence that East Asians have a narrower bell curve and some evidence to the contrary. If you believe Rushton’s tri-level hierarchy for the races, it makes sense to me that caucasoids would produce the most creative achievers. Because extreme creative achievement requires a mix of both evolved traits (IQ, hard work) and primitive traits (psychosis, non-conformity, psychopathy etc). Caucasoids being neither the most evolved nor most primitive, would have the perfect balance.
GondwanaMan
I hope that wasn’t a sarcastic remark LOL In any case my IQ probably took a hit over the years in addition to certain unfortunate life events. I’m generally mathematically, visually, and logic inclined although my verbal isn’t too far behind(it’s just not my strong suit).
I’d be questioning that 159+ score. Not to say that it’s impossible for you to have scored that high, just that you don’t know the size of the standard deviations. For all you know, the test could have standard deviations as high as the Cattell. Both my parents sat IQ tests in the army (non-US) around the same time and scored 145 and 156, respectively. However, personally I don’t consider them very smart, and I don’t consider myself very smart either (although I’ve never been tested). I come from a long line of poorly educated, blue-collar people.
The only thing close to a cognitive aptitude test I’ve taken is the ICAR60, which I scored 100% on. That being said, it was very easy. So my guess is that it has a ceiling of around 120 (15 SD)—although, I don’t know for sure. I’ve sat the ravens abridged and aced that too. Although, it’s only 16 questions and (as far as I’m aware) the ravens has an average correlation with g—something like 0.5. Even lower for the abridged version.
All I can say is that, given the heritability of IQ, I should score similarly to my parents. But my experience with both myself and them would lead me to believe that we don’t have IQ’s in excess of 125. So, like i said, question that military score.
“Sexes and races differ in height yet they’re all measured with the same tape measure. Don’t see why it should be any different for intelligence.”
Well because if one scores 4 SD on a sex and race combined test you would think that this was quite high, right? But once we single out the race and sex of that individual then their score might be a lot closer to just 3 SD above average for white males lets say. In other words adding females and other races inflates the score. It might be good to give a decent representation of where one ranks on a national population level but when comparing yourself to your peers(gender and race) it might give someone an inflated sense of confidence. Of course I understand the social implications of instantiating such a distinction in IQ testing, women would throw a fit while african americans might pull the racist card.
“Because extreme creativity requires a mix of both evolved traits (IQ, hard work) and primitive traits (psychosis, non-conformity, psychopathy etc). Caucasoids being neither the most evolved nor most primitive, would have the perfect balance.”
Right, this seems to confirm my suspicion. At first I thought that Europeans had greater admixture variance and possibly that pointed towards more variance in IQ. But then there doesn’t seem to be clear evidence that this is true(not aware of any data proving this). So I naturally gravitated towards personality traits and as you know my conceptual darling to explain these things at the moment is disagreeableness. It seems that Europeans are far more individualistic than East Asians. This may lead to greater divergence of ideas which in the long run gives extreme genius free reign to express itself. It may be that their culture stifles their greatest minds into conformity. I mean how else are they going to get 1.4 billion people to live under one rule. Extreme measures need to be employed. Which is what seems to be happening right now in the west, with globalists and leftists stifling free speech and enforcing greater conformity. If AI doesn’t soon take over in academic and intellectual advancements I think that we may actually reach a long lasting stagnation in our understanding of the deepest secrets of the universe. In fact I think in a sense we are actually in a stagnation period right now. There hasn’t been any significant advancement in Physics since the final formalization of Quantum Mechanics in the 1930s.
So the next question would be whether this preponderance of an individualistic personality for Europeans in comparison to East Asians is genetic on some level, or is it purely cultural. I think it is somewhere between the two. I do think there is on some level a genetic predisposition among Chinese people for conformity. Their population has fluctuated between 60 to 110 million for much of the last 2000 years and only ballooned to the level it is now in the last 200 years. That is a lot of people to govern over such a long time without figuring out how to pacify them somehow. This actually might point towards some predisposition of Europeans to having a wider and shorter bell curve than the Chinese but only in principle. Whether it actually translates to the actual data, is not all that clear to me. There is evidence that proves both sides of the argument.
I think what is happening as of late in the west where we are being bombarded with ideas of empathy and portraying feminine traits as superior to masculine traits and pushing for more and more conformity might in the end up backfire on us. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for belligerence, I believe in the strong adherence to the non aggression principle but violence is not the only way in which to express disagreeableness. If harnessed properly and internalized correctly it can be a powerful cognitive driver. We are being forced to forego those instincts in favor of greater and greater so called “social acuity” which is so poorly defined and can be manipulated every which way. As I’ve said before, I don’t think social intelligence is compatible with the rest of our cognitive abilities. One has to give way for the other in the long run.
”Because extreme creative achievement requires a mix of both evolved traits (IQ, hard work) and primitive traits (psychosis, non-conformity, psychopathy etc). ”
Psychosis and non-conformity maybe, but not psychopathy. None of the creative people are psychopaths.
Also for some extreme creative work having ASD’s seem to help for eg newton had mild aspergers or HFA, if not full autism. For other kinds of creative work like painting, designing, architecture schizophrenic tendencies seem to help. If not full schizophrenia.
Aint Tellin
I understand your skepticism, I too am skeptical with such claims but the figures i gave are 100% accurate. What’s more i also took an online test about a decade ago when i was bored during a long sleepless night(so once again not ideal conditions) and scored 156 on that one for what it’s worth. It was the most professional one I could find.
At my peak I think I could have cracked 160 fairly easily. I had an incredible flair for on the spot complicated multi level mental calculations(ie no pen and paper, math, physics, chess, backgammon etc) but I tend to be quite lazy and have a pretty adventurous spirit so over the years I may have messed things up under the hood so to speak.
“All I can say is that, given the heritability of IQ, I should score similarly to my parents. But my experience with both myself and them would lead me to believe that we don’t have IQ’s in excess of 125. So, like i said, question that military score.”
Well I wouldn’t judge your parents so harshly assuming those are indeed their scores. A high IQ doesn’t give you superpowers. You still make mistakes, the most costly of which seem to be social ones. You are still susceptible to life’s knocks and wear and tear over time. I know a few people that have incredibly gifted computational ability but in a lot of other ways they look like bumbling fools. My mother might just be the most verbally gifted person I have ever met but she also had her glitches in thought from time to time(she’s never taken an official test but I think she would easily score 145+). I used to think I could run circles around my parents from a very young age and I did in many many ways. However now that I am reaching the age they were when I was in my teens I realize that they must have been something special to be that sharp at that age. Don’t be too hard on your parents, in all likelihood their score at the time was indicative of where they ranked among their peers. There’s a chance you might be a lot closer to them than you think. Are your parents Israeli by any chance?
Also don’t confuse education with computational ability, I’ve played chess with some street husslers and they play so quickly and so accurately it would make your head spin. I’ve met many people with no higher education but with a mind that could run circles around most university professors.
Aaaand I think I may have reached my lifetime quota for talking about myself and my “intelligence” no less. I swore I would never do this, so if you don’t mind I’ll retreat from this discussion in shame…
However, I think it’s generally not wise to give out your IQ. Usually, bragging about your IQ is not socially acceptable as I’m sure you know. This is in fact the first time I have ever given out my IQ other than to a handful of friends/family.
As for Peterson, my sense is that he is probably reporting his full IQ. I think he is far too honest to not explicitly state that the IQ he is stating is just for the verbal part. Now whether he took a properly administered test or being a psychologist he decided to self administer the test is not quite certain, he did hesitate a little there. In any case I think his decision to elaborate further on the discrepancy between his verbal and math IQ is more of a show of modesty than anything else. Most socially adept people are quite uncomfortable discussing their IQ particularly if it’s as high as Peterson’s. Unless of course if you are some obnoxious online troll who thinks he can win an argument by stating his IQ.
Also note that 75th percentile on the GRE is actually quite good(as pumpkinperson showed in his analysis), considering that the average IQ of individuals taking the GRE is already at least at an IQ of 115. He may be strong on visual ability too and thus in conjunction with his math ability pushing him over 150.
What’s there to brag about?
That’s a good question, I’m being polite in assuming it’s reasonably high. I think anything over 130 is bragging territory.
”I think anything over 130 is bragging territory.”
Not if it is not said in the wrong place and in the wrong context. This site is about IQ.
“Not if it is not said in the wrong place and in the wrong context. This site is about IQ.”
Right, I agree but the OP’s question was asked in a more general sense.
“This begs the question, is it OK to pick and choose between the different IQ subtypes when giving your IQ?”
I scored 99 on the following test. I havent been sleeping well since a long time, plus i smoke and drink a lot.
https://international-iq-test.com/en/5bffb0bf-9b10-4533-9428-56945b79b065
The test seemed harder than the online wechsler test and they also charge 5 euros. I only found out about it after i completed the test and was eager for the result. But this online test compared to many other online IQ tests seemed standard probably second only to the online wechsler. Of course IMO taking the average score of this test and online wechsler seems IMO the better way to get an estimate of IQ using online methods as this had very few numeric and no verbal questions.
Bret Weinstein said in his talk with Richard Dawkins last month that Nazi actions during WWII can be seen as an adaptation—that genocide is an evolutionary adaptation.
Weinstein: “Understood through the perspective of German genes, vile as these behaviors were, they were completely comprehensible at the level of fitness. It was abhorrent and unacceptable—but understandable—that Germany should have viewed its Jewish population as a source of resources if you viewed Jews as non-people. And the belief structures that cause people to step onto battlefields and fight were clearly comprehensible as adaptations of the lineages in question.”
Dawkins: “I think nationalism may be an even greater evil than religion. And I’m not sure that it’s actually helpful to speak of it in Darwinian terms.”
This is rampant adaptationiam.
Thoughts?
Well I’ve long argued that genetic fitness doesn’t make you moral. Often just the opposite. Raping women is evil, but good for your genetic fitness because at least before the days of abortion, it led to you having more babies, i assume. Indeed having babies at all is arguably evil given our overpopulation and the number of kids needing adoption.
Any genotype that enhances its own replication at the expense of competing geneotypes is going to be selected by evolution. That’s just true by definition. If you kill everyone who shares your genotype, then obviously your genotype isn’t going to be around long, right? Thus some primates have probably been selected to do the opposite: kill everyone who doesn’t share their genotype, so that their genotype is the only survivor. Why do you think chimps raid rival troops and kill all the males. Evolution is sick & twisted, which is why a lot of high IQ people choose not to play the game.
So do you think Weinstein’s rampant adaptationism is true? What do you think of Thornhill and Palmer’s rape-as-adaptation hypothesis?
I agree that humans, like our chimp cousins, have sadly been selected to behave aggressively to members of the out-group, and this has likely played a role in all attempted genocides. I’m also inclined to agree with Thornhill and Palmer, that sadly men evolved to rape women in certain circumstances. One of the prevailing themes of prehistoric warfare is the winning tribe kills the losing tribe’s men and rapes their women. Selected by evolution != moral.
The claim that rape is an adaptation is a just-so story. The claim that genocide is an adaptation is a just-so story.
but the genocidal behavior of chimps provides independent confirmation.
That’s not an independent verifier for the claim.
why not RR?
Philosophers of science distinguish between hypotheses that accommodate known facts (a just-so story) from hypotheses that predict previously unknown observation (which are novel facts).
There has to be an independent reason to believe a hypothesis. There has to be evidence for the hypothesis independent of the data that it is designed to explain. So they only way there can be independent evidence is if the hypothesis makes predictions.
The hypothesis that trait X is an adaptation makes no type of prediction, so the only evidence for the hypothesis is the trait—what the hypothesis is designed to explain—so EP hypotheses are just-so stories.
EP hypotheses generate no testable predictions so there can’t be any evidence for EP hypotheses. Thus, EP hypotheses are just-so stories.
your criticism applies to virtually all evolutionary theories, not evolutionary psychology only. Complex evolution typically takes place over many generations. It can’t be tested experimentally in a lab the way a new drug or cancer treatment can.
“your criticism applies to virtually all evolutionary theories”
Appeal to consequences.
It’s a pretty big consequence
Appeal to consequences.
The main tenets of evolutionary theory have been independently verified.
Your definition of independent verification is arbitrary. You think vitamin d theory was independently verified because Neanderthals had light skin, yet you ignore genocide in chimps.
I don’t think that any more.
So are there any adaption theories you believe now? If so which one & was it independently verified? If so, how?
I would guess some genomes survive withouth killing others ^_^
“which is why a lot of high IQ people choose not to play the game.”
Nobody chooses not to play. [redacted by pp, nov 29, 2018]
Nobody chooses not to have (more) children?
(((they))) want you to believe that the shoah was the first genocide. in fact it was one of the last and not the biggest. it was only unique in that it was carried out with “german efficiency”. for example, the mongols shoah-ed more persians and chinese than the germans shoah-ed jews, and that when there were far fewer people on the planet.
genocide is common. (((their))) own holy book records (((their))) own genociding of the canaanites.
is it also observed in animals?
yes! it was observed when one monkey tribe shoah-ed another monkey tribe in rwanda.
“So are there any adaption theories you believe now? If so which one & was it independently verified? If so, how?”
The claim is all EP hypotheses are just-so stories. I don’t need to provide a hypothesis with its verifier. You need to independently verify rape and genocide as adaptations.
Also, what possible ‘selective pressures’ in the German lineage could possibly have caused ‘genocide as adaptation’?
Adaptionism is just, well, ridiculous and there can be no independent evidence since the hypotheses are inherently ad hoc.
Why do you keep saying EP?
Your criticism applies equally to all evolutionary theories, not psychology ones only.
If you don’t believe in evolution at all anymore just say so, otherwise provide an example to show why non-psychology evolution theories are any better.
The criticism applies to any hypothesis that can’t be independently verified. I don’t need to name one.
The main tenets of evolutionary theory have been independently verified.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc
Adaptionism isn’t coherent. Just because I’m not an adaptionist doesn’t mean that I’ don’t believe in evolution anymore.’
The purpose of an example is so we know what you consider to be an acceptable level of independent verification. You need to establish a clear standard & apply it consistently if you want to be credible on this issue.
Independent verification refers to the successful prediction of novel facts previously unknown before the formulation of the hypothesis in question.
Ape genocide was unknown at the time of the genocide adaptation hypothesis
Just provide the independent evidence for rape and genocide being adaptations. If not, just admit you’re just-so stories.
1 If a theory is scientific then it makes claims or predictions that could be shown to be false
2 A theory that warrants confirmation and only confirmation cannot be shown to be false.
C A theory that can only be confirmed and not falsified is not scientific but pseudoscientific (modus tollens, P1, P2).
^^^
That’s not independent evidence.
Weinstein is telling just-so stories.
How is ‘ape genocide’ independent evidence for Weinstein’s claim? Weinstein talked about the ‘lineages’. What occurred in the German lineage that selected them for ‘genocide’, which Weinstein seems to be asserting?
When will you admit you’re telling just-so stories?
I’m not defending Weinstein specifically, but rather the broader theory that genocide is an evolutionary strategy. That idea’s been around for a very long time.
Who originally formulated the hypothesis? Did the original hypothesis predict ‘ape genocide’? Of so, where? What do you mean by ‘ape genocide’?
There are no hallmarks of adaptation. EP hypotheses are thusly underdetermined by all possible observations.
Don’t know who originally pushed the theory, but the notion that genocide is an evolved strategy has been around as early as 1981.
https://search.proquest.com/openview/38b74376249e3d883dcef1e4c2a12ed7/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819504
Don’t know if they explicitly predicted ape genocide per se, but if one believes that humans commit genocide because of some evolved strategy, one would expect that (1) other animals would do it too, and (2) especially animals closely related to humans.
Both predictions have been borne out:
The idea of chimp genocide may sound strange, but they are one of only three animals that has been observed wiping out entire social groups. The other two are wolves and humans. Given that humans and chimps are so closely related, and our genocidal records so pronounced, it stands to reason that this common behavior may be more than just coincidental.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/does-chimp-warfare-explain-our-sense-of-good-and-evil/58643/
If they didn’t “explicitly [predict] ape genocide per se” then it doesn’t matter.
If the hypothesis in question didn’t make those predictions then no, “Both predictions have” not “been borne out”.
I fail to see how that’s independent evidence that ‘genocide’ was ‘selected for’.
So not only must they predict it, they must explicitly predict it? By that high standard virtually all evolutionary theories are just-so stories. You don’t believe in evolution.
The existence of the trait in question in closely related species is not independent evidence.
I never said that I ‘don’t believe in evolution.’
The existence of the trait in question in closely related species is not independent evidence.
Of course it is. It’s evidence not used to inspire the original theory and thus independent of it. And the existence of the same trait in chimps is some of the strongest evidence you could hope to find, because it suggests it was genetically inherited from a common ancestor, and was so adaptive, it was preserved in both species for the millions of years they’ve been separated.
I never said that I ‘don’t believe in evolution.’
You didn’t have to.
“Genocide is an adaptation because it’s found in apes” is not independent evidence.
“You didn’t have to”
There’s no reason for you to assume that I ‘don’t believe in evolution.’
Unless you believe that all evolution is adaptation.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Genocide is an adaptation because it’s found in apes” is not independent evidence.
Evidence is anything that makes something more likely. Independent is anything that doesn’t depend on what we already knew. Check and check.
There’s no reason for you to assume that I ‘don’t believe in evolution.’
Unless you believe that all evolution is adaptation.
Saying something evolved because of genetic drift or that it’s a byproduct of another adaptation is a just-so story too by your standard, so if you’re intellectually honest, you’ll reject all of evolution, not adaptionism only.
The hypothesis that genocide is an adaptation is independently verified iff it generates a prediction that disconfirms the hypothesis that genocide is a byproduct.
The main tenets of evolutionary theory have been independently verified, for the last time. Yes, byproduct explanations are just-so stories if they’re not independently verified.
I don’t deny evolution.
So by that logic, the byproduct hypothesis is independently confirmed if it generates a prediction that disconfirms the genocide is an adaptation hypothesis. What prediction was that?
You don’t deny evolution in the abstract but your standards command you to deny virtually all theories for how any specific trait evolved, from the violence of chimps to the spots on a leopard to the length of a giraffe’s neck. What good is believing in evolution if you can’t apply that belief to anything concrete?
I never claimed it was a byproduct. The claim is that all adaptationist hypotheses are just-so stories because they cannot be independently verified.
Evolution is simply change over time. No one denies that.
Virtually all specific evolutionary claims are just-so stories by that standard, yet you only seem bothered by adaptionist ones, especially if they deal with psychology. What you call “just-so stories” are just the best explanations we have, even if they don’t meet the highest scientific standards.
Adaptationism is a false paradigm. Inference to best explanation doesn’t cut it. How ‘parsimonious, fruitful, coherent,’ the hypotheses are doesn’t matter. That they “make the most sense” doesn’t matter. (OF COURSE they ‘make sense’ since adaptationist stories explain what they purport to explain and only what they purport to explain. They make no testable predictions)
Either way, the Demarcation Argument identifies EP—and adaptationism—as pseudoscience:
P1: If a theory is scientific then it makes claims or predictions that could be shown to be false
P2: A theory that warrants confirmation and only confirmation cannot be shown to be false.
C: A theory that can only be confirmed and not falsified is not scientific but pseudoscientific (Modus tollens, P1, P2).
Also see Sarkar’s genetic argument against adaptationism:
.
P1: The physical properties of DNA and its cellular environment lead to increased genome size and its baroque structure.
P2: Genome size is negatively correlated with population size.
P3: Selection acts against larger genomes.
P4: Small population sizes prevent the elimination of features selected against unless selection is very strong.
_______________________________________________________
C:Genomes increase in size, diversity, and so on and persist even though selection acts against these features.
https://academic.oup.com/bjps/article/66/3/505/1500883
As I’ve told you many times, adaptionist theories can make testable predictions if anyone bothered to test them. For example, the theory that cold winters select for high IQ can be tested by having a bunch of tropical hunter-gatherers playing a safe and supervised survival game in Alaska and seeing if the winners have high IQs. And if they did have higher IQs, you could disconfirm the byproduct of thermoregulation theory by seeing if the winners had IQs even after controlling for brain size.
I agree that many adaptionists don’t bother to make predictions, let alone to test them, but then neither do non-adaptionists.
CWT is already disproved. See McGreal’s article in PsychToday.
One doesn’t need to propose alternate explanations to be justified in rejecting just-so stories.
Simply rejecting a theory without testing it is not scientific. What predictions does McGreal’s Just-not so story make?
Current adaptiveness isn’t evidence for ancient adaptiveness.
The CWT can’t truly be tested. CWT is the definition of just-so story. Your thought experiment is cute, but not sufficient. Rushton’s theory is dead. Accept it.
You don’t need to propose theories that make predictions to be justified in rejecting just-so stories.
but even ancient adaptiveness can be tested. for example the theory that light skin was an adaptation to vitamin d can be tested by predicting more rickets will be found in the bones of early humans migrating north. richard klein’s theory that the great leap forward was caused by a brain mutation occurring around 50 kya can be tested by predicting such a mutation will be found in the gemome etc. CWT predicts genetic variants for IQ (even controlling for brain size) will be more common in northern populations and show selective sweeps around the time we entered the cold.
In science a hypothesis can only be rejected if its prediction fails or if it fails to make predictions. I’ve just made predictions for CWT so get back to me in 20 years.
“A successful research program leads to the discovery of many exciting and unexpected facts. An unsuccessful program spends its time explaining away the continued failure of its detailed research.” (Sterelny and Griffiths 1999, 252)
All that, and it still wouldn’t be evidence for the adaptationist hypothesis. The claim that trait X moved to fixation in virtue of its contribution to reproductive success is underdetermined by all possible observations because there are no hallmarks of adaptation.
“get back to me on 20 years” “get back to me in 50 years.” get back to me in 100 years”
You can say that about any future time period.
Mental states are underdetermined by physical states—the mind is underdetermined by the brain. So the evidence you say will be here in “20 years” won’t appear.
You won’t admit you’re wrong then, though.
All that, and it still wouldn’t be evidence for the adaptationist hypothesis. The claim that trait X moved to fixation in virtue of its contribution to reproductive success is underdetermined by all possible observations because there are no hallmarks of adaptation.
word salad
You can say that about any future time period.
Then do a study that can be done right now. Compare the IQs and brain size of tropical ancestry adults with Northern ancetsry adults, both adopted from birth into identical homes. If you’re worried about not controlling for prenatal effects, then include mixed ancestry adoptees born to white mothers. If you’re worried about reaction norms, repeat in different countries. This prediction has been tested before but due to sampling problems, different studies gave different results, so it remains the most straight forward untested prediction.
Another testable prediction courtesy of Mug of Pee. Test the redlegs (poor whites of Barbados) and compare their IQs and brain size to equally poor blacks in Barbados. You could make it a documentary on youtube and make a lot of money; I’d even promote it for you on this blog and send you all the tests and instructions you needed. And you could show off all your working out by walking through hot Barbados shirtless thus gathering more youtube hits 🙂
Mental states are underdetermined by physical states—the mind is underdetermined by the brain.
I already debunked that nonsense.
You won’t admit you’re wrong then, though.
Dude, I’ve now given you four completely different testable predictions and all you’ve done in return is danced on split hairs, repeated debunked “logic” and clung desperately to your just-not-so-stories.
It’s not “word salad.” Since the mind is underdetermined by the brain, then the evidence you want won’t come.
The logic is not “debunked.” I already said that the claim that trait X moved to fixation in virtue of its contribution to reproductive success is underdetermined by the physical facts so there can’t be evidence since there are no hallmarks of adaptation. Since the mental facts are underdetermined by the physical facts there can’t be the evidence you’re looking for.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/
You’re the one who clings desperately to just-so stories. Even if what you’re saying is true, it’s still not independent evidence for the hypothesis. You need independent evidence to believe a hypothesis and your proposal isn’t independent evidence.
The CWT is nothing but a special pleading just-so story. (“Higher intelligence went to fixation in arctic climates since the more intelligent individuals survived to pass on their genes.” is a just-so story.)
All selectionist explanations are just-so stories. Anderson and Graves have also shown the flaws in Rushton’s story as well.
You say I’m rejecting hypothesis X without it being tested but these stories can’t be tested because the hypotheses are ad hoc. Your proposal isn’t independent evidence. Try again.
Of course you can hide with the “come back to me in 20 years”, but the hypothesis was proposed by Rushton 30 years ago and there have been no studies on your proposal. Who’s to say someone will play your game in the next 20 years? 100 years?
This hypothesis, and along with all EP hypotheses, are nothing more than speculation (see Robert Richardson, Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology).
You can hide behind these wacko proposals you know won’t ever get tested in order to hold onto your Rushton fantasies. Funny.
Since the mind is underdetermined by the brain
What’s the mind determined by?
Since the mental facts are underdetermined by the physical facts
Unproven assertion
You’re the one who clings desperately to just-so stories. Even if what you’re saying is true, it’s still not independent evidence for the hypothesis. You need independent evidence to believe a hypothesis and your proposal isn’t independent evidence.
You said independent evidence is evidence that was not known at the time the theory was made. The examples I give are still not known. They’re MORE than independent evidence (for or against).
The CWT is nothing but a special pleading just-so story. (“Higher intelligence went to fixation in arctic climates since the more intelligent individuals survived to pass on their genes.” is a just-so story.)
Now you’re just repeating yourself. It’s not a perfect theory and it’s obviously not the whole story, but I strongly suspect it’s one of the major explanations for geographic IQ differences. But I’m more than happy to be proven wrong.
All selectionist explanations are just-so stories. Anderson and Graves have also shown the flaws in Rushton’s story as well.
Rushton has critiqued anderson’s gender and Graves’ race so I’m not surprised they found “flaws”. And spare me the appeal to motive talking point.
You say I’m rejecting hypothesis X without it being tested but these stories can’t be tested because the hypotheses are ad hoc.
You don’t understand what ad hoc means. Ad hoc would be if Lynn had ten different theories to explain the IQ rank of his ten races. He has only two: cold winters and population size. That means his theories generalize to multiple groups. He might be completely wrong but he is literally the opposite of ad hoc.
Of course you can hide with the “come back to me in 20 years”, but the hypothesis was proposed by Rushton 30 years ago and there have been no studies on your proposal.
Because anyone who takes HBD seriously gets smeared so no one wants to touch it. If if were safe to research this topic the journals would be overflowing with testable claims and the research to test them.
Your proposal wouldn’t show independent evidence, either.
So repetitive. Literally a few months ago. I postulated that Schizophrenia(a psycho-genetic disease) was a byproduct of increased intelligence, which itself was an adaption. This was followed by enormous evidence and independent verification via novel predictions. Yet here he is still blathering on whilst simultaneously not providing any sound conceptual disagreements to any examples that contradict his claims or accusations of his blatant hypocrisy.
Pumpkin if you’re interested:
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/29167880
http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc5918692
https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-2008-9-8-r124
I should also mention that not only is adaptation the main propagator of speciation history, but there inumerous amounts of possible predictions, that Adaptionist hypothesis(including EP) can make. His only reason for not agreeing with that is because we don’t have time machines. So Not only is he ignorant of genetic methods that allow us to test these assumptions, he’s ignorant of how science works in general. It’s not objective.
https://elifesciences.org/articles/36317
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/34/8/1863/3804550
https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutral-theory-of-evolution-challenged-by-evidence-for-dna-selection-20181108/?mc_cid=56140ad1d1&mc_eid=a2bccb49a5
Neutral theory is dead!
schizos have significantly lower pre-morbid IQs than non-schizos.
thus king melo is shown to be [redacted by pp, dec 9, 2018] once again.
[redacted by pp, dec 9, 2018](((whechsler))) called his test an IQ test, so peepee thinks it’s an IQ test.[redacted by pp, dec 9, 2018]
I don’t deny SATs/GREs are intelligence tests (in certain populations) but an IQ test is any g loaded psychometric test that reports its scores in IQ units. SATs/GREs can be converted to IQ units, inwhich case we can call them IQ equivalents, though i doubt they’re as g loaded as the best IQ tests for most Americans.
Mug of Pee walks into a store with 79 British pounds.
Clerk: “We don’t accept pounds, we need $100 U.S. dollars”
Mug of Pee “But this is equal to $100 U.S. dollars. You’re confusing words with things”
Clerk: “Security”
Police drop Mug of Pee off at a home for the criminally insane where he refuses to take the WAIS because Wechsler was Jewish and because he falsely thinks the minority female psychologist has a lower IQ than him.
the advertising industry depends on people like [redacted by pp, dec 9, 2018]
it’s not just EP. ALL social sciences are pseudosciences. so why do they exist? they serve two functions:
1. economics and psychology serve to justify the current system and its inequality.
a. economics teaches the current system is the best of all possible systems or close to it.
b. psychology teaches that there are no problems with the system only problems with individuals and their psychological traits.
2. all of the social sciences serve the function of allowing dumb people to earn degrees and thus prevent them from identifying as members of the proletariat.
I wonder what are the proven environmental effects on individual variation that have been tested ?
I know only about a 10% effect on education level from parents education level (10% being dna) . Is there more to proven systematic environnement effect ?
I diasgree. Germany was poor but so were other european countries at that time. Hitler enriched germany by kickstarting its industrial sector but should have stopped there. What was the need to take attack jews. Lots of jews had german blood. They even had blond hair and blue eyes. German is not an ethnicity, ethnicity means celtic, slavic, nordic etc. Germans were a mix of these three. So were the british and polish.
Germans never came out of their farms. Jews were not agricultural. So they stayed in the cities and were in non agricultural trades. So they got rich faster than the farm germans. Some of them worked in factories but never did trade.
Also what right did hitler have over ukraine and russia.
I meant i disagree with RR, when i started typing my reply your reply was not there PP.
“I diasgree. Germany was poor but so were other european countries at that time. Hitler enriched germany by kickstarting its industrial sector but should have stopped there.”
The weimar republic was economically literate. It was the former SPD hjalmar schacht that introduced much of the stimulus to the economy. Hitler and his industralist friends took away leftist influence from the party and introduced royal families to the SS. They most notoriously wastefully spent their public sectors to privatization and government budget on massive military spending (against the advice of Hjalmar), instead of reaching full capacity, of course with overdue deficit spending. So id say that hitler was an corruption on the SPD. ww2 germany did have an very extensive welfare system. Thats ok, but i prefer paying people extra for work instead of flat out giving people money.
[redacted by pp, nov 29, 2018] not taking into account the flynn effect.
when penisson was 16, in 1978, scores on the cereal box IQ tests were lower.
penisson’s current score would need to be compared to what HIS score was in his 20s.
it’s interesting that the information subtest is the only one which requires no correction and is also the most g-loaded and reliable in some studies.
I mentioned the flynn effect in an earlier comment.
one reason why IQ scores fall is people leave school, and jobs and leisure activities don’t challenge most people cognitively as much as school
penisson never left school. he’s a professor.
so when penisson claims his IQ is lower today than it was when he completed his PhD, this merely shows people with low IQs, like himself, can earn PhDs in psychology.
I do generally feel like I’ve gotten stupider since college, maybe even high school, because I don’t challenge myself that much intellectually. I just come home and watch Netflix and do my pot/Adderall combo.
Puppy what if peterson lied?
That’s always a possibility
If you could give an honest estimate of Petersons IQ, taking into account more than his GRE, what would you give him?
Well if i didn’t know his GRE i think i would have probably guessed he was 135, so his GRE is perhaps not far from what my subjective impression would have been, or so i’ld like to think.
Bruno actually is on record estimating his IQ long before these scores were brought to our attention
And what did Bruno estimate?
I am not absolutely sure but I think I estimated the IQ of Peterson at 155 for verbal and 125 for math in a comment last year … after watching more videos of him and reading one of his book, i think it may be more like 145 for verbal because he has a magic/preacher attitude that makes him look even brighter than he is.
Just read David Reich book on ancien Dna. It is very interesting because Reich has decided to present the reasoning underlying the recent state of the knowledge and not only the result. For a verbal presentation of genetic – it’s not a handbook – it is really highly g loaded and few people (I would say first centile) can read it like fiction, not having to te-read passages to fully get them.
Interestingly, being Jewish – however liberal and from the enlightened tradition like Pinker – influences him a hell of a lot. He presents the HBD position by caricaturing Jim Watson as an old Nobel who isn’t into science anymore and succumb to his idiosyncratics « obstreperousness » .
He reportedly whispers to Reich and Shapiro (a colleague) : « when are you guys going to figure out why is it that you Jews are so much smarter than anyone else ? » and that Indian Brahmins were high achievers because of genetic advantages conferred by thousands of years of natural selection to be scholars. And that they were servile because of a trait selected by the caste system.
Obviously, Reich doesn’t talk about the prejudice Watson May have had against Jewish and the alleged origin of them being bright (financial speculation and parasitism, exploiting goyish credulity and less intelligence).
There would be a lot to tell about the constant insidious propaganda in Reichs book despite an apparent objectivity. After having read Pinkers book and Reich book, A detailed analysis could illustrate McDonalds point. It’s probably an instinctive tendency.
– Oh Just see that Pumpkin remembered !
– for the record, I wouldn’t blame Jewish for following their own interest
Reading a book about ancient DNA genetics can enlighten comprehension of Breaking news in cable TV :
I was reading about sentinelle Island people who still lives like a Stone Age tribe, because they have the unmixed South Indian DNA wich helps understand that India is made of 2 major populations, when I heard about the news of a proselyte pastor killed with an arrow there ….
and there is also a long passage about Native American gvts being extremelly hostile to genetics study (because there were victims of scientist duplicity) which helps understand their reaction to senator Warren testing. Reich explains how scientist have been dealing with Native American about this issue circumventing a law about human remains (NAGPRA).
Yes i read that. To prove he isn’ t racist after admitting races differ in mental traits, reich is attacking Watson for being racist.
Exactly ! I noted this about the passage in my notebook about Reich dubious points :
Average differences between group are certainly less important than average differences within group. But they should be studied because the findings can have positive consequences for all (health).
Racist people think that the genetic will validate their prejudice. But if we take ad an example the genetic of ancestry, most prejudices have been invalidated (wich is not shown by the examples given by the book)
Reich personal final enlightened stance :
Each group belong to humanity and can choose his heritage. For example, Jewish haven’t a historical claim on American soil but can claim part of it by choice. Jewish ancestors mostly didn’t speak English but English is JA own language. Jewish don’t come form the enlightened tradition but they can claim It as every scholars.
Underlying theme : « Population mixing is a good thing that has always happened and should be welcomed »
Speaking of re-reading passages, I’m an exceedingly slow reader. I have to re-read sentences multiple times and my brain gets stuck on words because they don’t register properly in my brain. It’s like a mental stutter. Very rarely do i feel ‘in the zone’ when reading, and most of the time i want to do anything but read – to the point where it’s stressful. However, somehow i scored 99th percentile on the SAT (verbal, i’m a fast writer). I can understand complex passages, it just takes some time for the words make sense.
What does this indicate in terms of intelligence?
Maybe you have a higher standard of understanding, meaning you really aim at catching all the propositions and the logical articulation thereof, a paragraph contain.
Most non fiction books repeat main ideas around 10 times and scientific papers 5 times because people needs this to grasp new information.
Learning proof writing in math is a good way to raise standards but my experience is that, even if a person is trained, it doesn’t spill over to other domains.
A bit OT but I have a question perhaps a commenter on this site can answer. Anyone have any experience with the self-scoring IQ test authored by the late Victor Serebriakoff? Just curious as to how accurate the score might be. I see that the publishing date was 1996 so not sure how or if this would distort the results. Many reviewers claim to get scores identical to their WAIS scores. Thanks
I think Peterson was talking about how the raw scores decrease per age.
Opinion on Peterson- He’s a cool guy when it comes to his ideas on how to deal with the SJWs, but I don’t like his IQ determinism.
Pumpkin, if one sample’s average was 8 (bilinguals) with an SD 5, and another with average (monolingual) of 10, SD of 3, if you get a score of 13 being a bilingual horned to the monolingual group, do you give yourself a 2 point bonus.
Assuming the two groups have the same IQ distribution on a culture fair test, then a 13 reflects the same ability in both groups because it’s +1 sd in both groups.
On the other hand, a 3 in the bilingual group would equal a 7 in the monolingual group because both scores are -1 sd in equivalent groups
So, for this study, you can’t add the two points. But then, the SD for information is 3, it’s how it normally is, but the SD for the monolingual is way to low. Could you assume that in an average sample, the SD would be 3, and just leave this up to sampling error?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5221650/
Also, wouldn’t that mean that a 13 in the bilingual group is the same ability as that in the monolingual group? But then wouldn’t it be such that once you get into the higher ability ranges you have increased ability, hence adding two points would be rational even if you got a score of 13 on the vocab test. Essentially, should you go by the mean or the SD.
Please answer my question pumpkin.
How similar are the smarter balanced tests and the SAT?